Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Dangerous and abandoned open water wells in the woods

Hey guys,

Just wondering if you've ever come across dangerous and open old water wells while out walking in the woods? Or, even old test holes from mining or mineral test drill holes.

I know in the Northeast we have some that were at one time were covered over with wood, but have now since rotted and have become quite hidden and dangerous.

Have you seen these in your area? Have you seen any that are quite hidden and dangerous in your area?

I can think of at least 3. This one, for whatever reason, really caught Rock's attention.

Wow! That one is crazy! Great post!

There are two old hand dug water wells like that on the Ranch. Both are covered with a big ole steel plate, though.

The oldest of the two was said to have been preferred by prohibition area bootleggers of the area for the best tasting water for making their whiskey. 😬

Yes. I know of a few. They could certainly be dangerous

Came across one hand dug open water well and it was terrifying the way it blended in.

I grew up in an famous mining district in Idaho that had mining production until the 1980's. Also worked surveying timberlands there's for dept interior. There have been times when I came across open mine shafts and it was creepy for sure. Since then the state and EPA has done exhaustive reclaiming and blocked off old mining adits and filled in vertical shafts. Out west in places like Arizona and Nevada open shafts are a common thing to be mindful of. Hate being underground having worked in it for a few decades.

Idaho was a very busy place in the gold rush days. There are mines all over the mountains. Most are closed up but I've seen some that are still open. I don't know anything about mining claims but I think many are worked a couple days a year or whatever it takes to maintain the claim.

Out west there are abandoned mines and bore hole galore. Being a driller during the uranium boom, I worked for most major mining companies. Most holes were for discovery of mineral deposits, but some work was seismic in which a hole was drilled, and explosives installed and detonated, and some assessment work. Hundreds of holes a year and the mining companies never had us cap or plug any. Large pits were dug next to each hole site to be used to produce our drilling mud. These were filled with a heavy bentonite slurry. Just walked off and left these as well.

I almost fell into an open mine air shaft while turkey hunting in NE Washington. Very deep shaft. I doubt one would survive a fall down that hole.

I was watching a forensics show awhile back and an older gentleman disappeared while deer hunting. They eventually found him deceased in an old abandoned well. Dont remember what state this happened at, Im thinking PENN or NY

Idaho has an historic silver mining belt. I've got an old operation literally in my backyard.

Was stomping around on an old wooden door hunting rabbits one day with Dad and Pap, they like to have tore me a new one. It was at an old house site and was covering a well, Dad lifted it and showed me.

40+ years ago, can't even remember where it was. I'd bet it's an open trap now, if not built over by some Import Prick.

Yes I have. I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan which is mining country back during the copper and iron ore boom of the late 1800s through the 1960s The place is full of old mine shafts and it has plenty of old water wells due to old abandoned homesteads and farms. One of my dad’s friends lost a beagle in an old well hunting rabbits years back. They covered it but I’m sure it rotted through by now as it was back in the early 80”s. The water and snow load would test the best treated wood.

Terrifying and awful way to go

Found an open 12 inch cased well up where I used to shoot. A few years later, a developer was trying to locate same. Someone in the interim had capped and covered it, so we had to go to a metal detector. There was standing water within about 15 feet of the surface.

Seems uncapped gas wells are in the news too

There was one on a previous lease I was on. No one knew it was there until the sticks and leaves that were covering it, happened to fall in on their own. We put in some T-posts and rope and surveyor’s tape to mark it.

I’ve found two stump holes accidentally. One was in a swampy area in Chesapeake, Va. i was easing along in about a foot of water and the next thing I knew I was waist deep in a hole about 4’ in diameter that had been covered with leaves.

Another, I found walking out of a hardwood bottom with a flashlight after sunset with a climbing stand on my back. I took a step and my left foot went went down so fast and deep that my right knee hit me in the jaw. I rolled over, got the climber off my back and took inventory. Nothing broken but I was stunned for a bit. 🥴

We had one in a 10acre woodlot north of our farmhouse. We all knew where it was, and it was pretty obvious, because the hogs Dad kept in that woodlot kept the undergrowth down to nuthin'. Dad finally got around to filling it in where it wasn't a hazard any more.

There are a helluva lot of old farmsteads in N/C Missouri that have fallen down and all of them had to have a water source of some type, so we encountered the old wells pretty often. LIkely as not, about all that was left of anyone living there might be only the foundation of an old house or barn. You just have to pay attention where you walk.
Since we were usually rabbit or squirrel hunting, we were paying attention.

Stepped on a couple of big tree stumps that were cut flush with the ground. Years of rot cause me to fall up to my crotch. Nasty smelling and of course, soaked to the bone.

What's even scarier than some of the high mountain abandoned mine shafts in the Rockies are the roads going to them. I've been on some that are spooky with a UTV. I can't imagine driving a 2 ton truck up some of those roads.

Ran onto the well on my place in the morning before dark one morning turkey hunting.

Someone pulled the concrete cap, put some tin over the well top then put the cap back on.

There are several old drill holes in a canyon on our Hill Country lease that we try to avoid. The landowner's property in Boerne has areas that sit over a cave system that has only been partially explored. It's spooky to be walking his place and almost step into a hole that seems bottomless. He thinks it's the same cave system as the Boerne Cave Without a Name which is about a mile from his gate.

We had one on our old deer lease in a spring. It was only about 6 feet deep though. I got too hot once in the summer and climbed down in it to cool off.
I was thankful for it that day.

Yup. There’s a capped one in the uncleared section of the local ball field where I used to walk my dog. I don’t think I could budge that cover with a six-foot digging iron. Another one was on my WMA, just a hole with some rocks around it. Not sure if it was for a farm or the old mineral baths that were there 100 years ago.

Something else that’s really scary are the “breaks” that are common in coal mine country, essentially cave-ins above mine shafts. No telling how deep they might be, but I’m pretty sure there ain’t any cell service at the bottom of any of them. The one I actually ran into was very well-hidden, full of leaves and barely noticeable.

I came across some guys punching in a logging road on a mountainside and they bladed into an vertical raise (shaft) building that road. Yeah roads can have surprises and those old roads put in pre-bulldozer Era are very scary.

Seen some covered and some open.

Worst was when working in the goldfields of Western Australia. Open shafts and stopes everywhere. We’d be drilling with reverse circulation and lose returns only to have dust coming up a shaft 50yards away. Once into the floor we would get circulation back.

A drilling company we used left us to go out past Laverton, way up north of Kalgoorlie, just before Christmas 1987. They were double shifting, this fellow moved a Ute and walked back to the rig but didn’t turn up. He fell down a 114’ shaft, and lived. Fractured skull, pelvis, femur etc. Onto Royal Flying Doctor Service to Perth and turned out ok. They think he fractured skull and was unconscious when he fell in, thus totally relaxed the rest of the way!

Hate to think what was down some of those old workings. No markings they were there at all.

I used to know where a couple were when I was a kid roaming the woods behind the house with a BB gun. I didn't know who owned the land and back in those days nobody cared much.

Found several of them through the years. Always made me nervous when coon hunting by myself.

Had to retrieve a coon hound out of a well one night while hunting by myself. Luckily it had filled in over time and was only about 10 feet deep and semi dry.